


I Only Know I’m Lucky (To Be Loving You)

by ShadowsLament



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-26
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-25 19:09:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3821566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowsLament/pseuds/ShadowsLament
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1946: The war hadn’t been kind to nobody, least of all to Eggsy and his little family, struggling to get by on what Eggsy could provide. So when Roxy told him about the taxi-dance hall, where tickets turned in at the end of the night returned ten pence apiece, he shoved his misgivings down deep and agreed to go with her. It was supposed to be an illusion, a harmless bit of romance set to a sweeping big band score, or so Eggsy thought, until he glanced across the crowded room and met the eyes of a well turned out man in a fine bespoke suit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Thursday

**Author's Note:**

> I’m admittedly playing fast and loose with several things here, and I’m asking you to pretty please go with me, to pretend taxi-dance halls spread from the States to Allied Europe before or during WWII, and also that Sammy Cahn’s “Time After Time” was written/recorded in 1946 rather than ’47. The fic’s title is taken from the song--sort of, the spirit of it at least--and I listened to both Sinatra’s and Margaret Whiting’s versions while writing (keep that in mind towards the end of the ch). The hmm, what if? inspiration for the fic came from a novel I read years ago and suddenly remembered, Christine Fletcher’s _10 Cents a Dance_. One last thing: The soundtrack for the first chapter also includes, among other songs, Glenn Miller’s “Moonlight Serenade” and “In the Mood,” Benny Goodman’s “Sing Sing Sing” (I like The Spitfire Band’s concise performance of it), and on a modern but-the-tone-fits note, Brika’s “Demons.” (All decidedly American; I’ll work on that.)

Nothing about the tie he’d borrowed was tidy, not the knot or the color, some muddy shade of brown that, in the right light or through a squint, about matched the stripes on Eggsy’s best shirt. A fair lot of people liked to remind him how beggars couldn’t be choosers, and the tie was a last minute, mad frantic addition, him rushing down the hall to Mrs Corbenic’s door with his scuffed-beyond-redemption Oxfords untied and striking the floor to beat Astaire at his own game. The strip of well-worn silk was what she had, so he took it, gladly. 

No one told him the others waiting in line to earn ten pence a dance at the Avalon Dancing Academy would be dressed to the nines, all spit and polish and perfectly pressed pants. 

Eggsy tucked his hands in his pockets, well away from his tightening collar. “What ‘m I doin’ here, Rox? Ain’t no one gonna want to--”

“Yes,” Roxy interrupted, “someone will. Plenty of someones. All you have to do, Eggsy, is smile like you mean it. Flash them even one grin and I promise you, you won’t know where to put all the tickets they shove at you.”

“She’s not wrong,” the pretty brunette standing close behind them offered. She stuck out her hand. “Amelia.”

“Eggsy,” he said, and gently squeezed her night-chilled fingers. “This here is Roxy.”

The girls exchanged a smile, a firm handshake over Roxy’s murmured, “A pleasure.” 

“So.” Amelia fixed kind eyes on Eggsy. “This will be your first time taxi-dancing, then?” 

“First,” Eggsy agreed, nodding, “an’, I don’ know, could be the last, unless the corner I’m likely to be left standin’ in has somethin’ else to offer.”

It wasn’t nothing Roxy hadn’t heard before, them being the first words out of his mouth when she’d told him about this place she’d found, the dance hall that maybe didn’t openly advertise welcoming same sex partners, but had, after word got out and admission sales shot through the roof, swelled the ranks of male hosts on hand on any given night. He’d changed the words up a bit, but the tune had been the same not an hour ago, with Roxy there rolling her eyes, batting his hands away from the only suit jacket he owned to take over smoothing out the wrinkles.

There was really no saying how ridiculous he felt in his borrowed tie and hand-me-down shoes, in trousers he’d had to cuff not because it was fashionable or nothing like that but so the frayed hems didn’t give him away. He’d done it though, put all of it on and tried to fix his hair with what little pomade he could scrape out of the tin. The long and short of it was simple enough: his pride meant precious little stacked against ensuring his mum was able to pay for the stuff in the ration books.

“With a face like yours? You won’t see the sidelines all night, I’ll bet.” Cinching the belt on her coat, Amelia burrowed into the thin wool. She held up a hand to forestall Eggsy, halfway out of his jacket. “Thank you, but we’ll be let in soon. I can manage till then.”

“If you change your mind,” Eggsy said, to keep the offer on the table. 

“That face _and_ a gentleman.” Amelia winked at Roxy, a deliberate bit of exaggeration that was still somehow genuine, sweet. “Let the rest of us have a chance tonight, will you?”

“Rox’s been assurin’ me there’ll be plenty to go around.”

“And you’ll soon see I’m right,” Roxy insisted with a pointed look, the one she pulled out when she was gaining on frustrated with him. He saw that look often enough and didn’t mind it none, not when it was followed by a fond huff, her arm slipping through his in a loose loop. She leaned against his side, her temple pressed to his arm. “As always.”

“Are you two...” The hesitant words drifted off, but the question was there in the curious glance Amelia swept between Rox and him.

Roxy shook her head. “Friends.”

“The best,” Eggsy added.

Amelia was quiet a moment before she said, simply, “You’re both quite lucky.” She sniffed, or her breath hitched, it was such a small sound of distress Eggsy couldn’t be sure, and then the hurt cleared from her eyes like clouds drifting away from a set of stars, leaving her gaze twice as bright. “Look, they’ve finally opened the doors.”

Music swayed out from the hall, a sensual conversation carried closer on the cool breeze. It was one of those songs that always had Eggsy’s eyes closing before the first notes gave way to the rest, that made his breathing slow down and sigh out, because it sounded like what he imagined intimacy must feel like: soft and soothing, like a heartbeat so constant he could set the passing time of his life by it.

“See,” Roxy said, catching sight of the smile playing around the corner of his lips, “this isn’t going to be so bad.”

“Yeah, well,” Eggsy hedged, “it ain’t really begun, right?”

They followed on the heels of the small, giddily chattering group ahead of them, their steps falling in time with the short strokes of two or three saxophones, Eggsy’s pulse trilling worse than the trumpet the closer they got to the spill of warm light just beyond the door. Roxy didn’t let go of him, not until they were in and she was shrugging out of her coat, handing over the knee-skimming trench to a stub of a man with a long cigar clenched between stained teeth. 

Passing through a cloud of fragrant smoke, Roxy tugged Eggsy along, up some stairs and past a caged-in booth with a sign beside it listing the price of admission, of the tickets. The white-walled hallway led to a black-varnished bar, the aisle between that long stretch of glass-topped wood and a chain of club chairs narrow, forcing a pair closer if they wanted to walk down it side by side. 

Eggsy darted a glance over the bartender’s shoulder at the two-tiered row of mostly full bottles. For all of a second he sincerely wished he was holding a glass of something that’d burn through his lingering doubts, through the foolish nerves he couldn’t seem to shake.

A sharp left at the end of the bar into the dance hall proper, and Roxy was looking up at his face, intently watching as his wide-eyed stare turned from the raised stage, slender and backlit, with the band spread out in one long, elbow-brushing line, to the black columns, eight of them, standing several feet apart in the center of the room and capped off by spiraling steel. Above his head, gilt-edged forget-me-nots trailed along the ceiling, here and there broken by an iris, by a wispy-tipped stem he didn’t have a name for.

The place wasn’t understated, not even close, but it was a subdued kind of elegant he could maybe get used to.

“Dancers wait over there.” Roxy redirected Eggsy’s attention across the room to a loose grouping of seats with a wide berth on either side for those that had to stand while waiting on a willing partner. She guided him over, explaining, “It’s crowded to start, and once the doors open to patrons the overly eager ones start jockeying to be at the front. Don’t pay any attention to them.”

It took some shuffling and a fresh scuff across the toe of Eggsy’s shoe for Amelia to squeeze in beside them. “Did you warn him about Charlie and his lot?” 

Eggsy glanced at Roxy. “Charlie?”

“An obnoxious, moneyed sod,” Roxy bit out. “He turns up here most nights with a small pack of like-minded tossers, all of them out to scandalize their parents.”

Amelia nodded, picking up the thread. “They’ve got this running bet between them to see who can steal the most patrons away from the rest of us. For fun, mind, because they sure as hell don’t need an extra ten pence in their pockets. My advice, don’t look too long at one patron—“

“Because if Charlie notices, he’ll put himself in that man’s path, and there goes your chance,” Roxy finished, a snap of temper staining her cheeks. “I swear, one of these days my nails are going to find his kidney.”

“Lower, Rox.” Eggsy grinned like some sharp-toothed thing, full of feral intention. “If you wanna do real harm.”

The fine line of Roxy’s eyebrow arched. “I would, but there are so many better things I could do with my time than fish around for something so small.”

Loud and clear and contagious, Amelia’s laugh turned heads. She either didn’t notice or didn’t care, and Eggsy liked her that much better for it. “Remind me,” she said, light as air, “to stay safe and sound on your good side.”

“That shouldn’t be at all difficult.” A wide smile bloomed on Roxy’s rose red lips. “I’m an entirely reasonable woman, right, Eggsy?”

“I ain’t never met one more reasonable.” Eggsy tilted his head, a finger at his pursed mouth, tapping. “‘Course there was that one time--” 

“Don’t you dare.” The words might’ve been hissed, but that smile lingered, and the angry color had fled from her skin, so he figured that was fine. “All right,” Roxy said, the first to notice the patrons flooding in, “here we go.”

As there was no need to hide his curiosity, Eggsy let his gaze go, let it roam over the men light-stepping into the hall. They were a motley lot, and that wasn’t surprising, exactly, just odd, seeing so many fine, chalk-striped suits in the darkest blues and pitch black mixed in with roughed-up white shirtsleeves and ragged suspenders, tweed flat caps put away alongside strips of tickets in side pockets. 

“See anyone you like?” Roxy quietly asked.

Eggsy shrugged. “That don’t really matter, does it? I gotta dance with whichever one of them gives up a ticket.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t spend more time with one that catches your eye. Charm him, make it so he wouldn’t dream of giving a ticket to anyone else.” She squeezed his arm. “You could have anyone here, and he’d be the luckiest man around, remember that.”

It took him a second because he had to swallow, and his voice still sounded thick, but Eggsy managed to say, “I fuckin’ love you, you know that, right?”

Roxy’s soft-edged laugh floated to him beneath the music. “As surely as _you_ know the feeling’s mutual.”

“Hey, you two,” Amelia called over her shoulder as a young man in an argyle sweater vest towed her onto the dance floor, “try to have some fun.”

“Hmm,” Roxy hummed, her considerable attention focused on a stunner in a heart-stopping black dress, with an abundance of loose, dark waves falling over the slope of a pale shoulder. “I just might.” Chin notched up, Roxy held the woman’s interested stare but said to Eggsy, “If you need me--”

“I’m all good, Rox. Turn her world upside down, yeah?”

The band launched into a pulsating song just as Roxy’s would-be partner reached them. She extended her hand, a ticket between two fingers. Roxy accepted it, inching her skirt up higher with each insistent beat of the drums to tuck it into her stocking, securing the thin scrap of paper behind a shining silver garter clip. 

Eggsy kept her in sight until a tangle of dancers swinging and shimmying for all they were worth blocked his view.

From the corner of his eye he saw there were others still behind the line, waiting, it was just that the number was dwindling fast. Standing there, he’d never felt more like glass, all these men with plenty of tickets and empty arms looking straight through him. When another approached, eager-eyed, blonde hair glinting in the low light, Eggsy stood a bit straighter and lifted his chin. Trying out Roxy’s advice, he smiled, and fuck, it shouldn’t have shook, threatening to fall right off his face, not over something he’d convinced himself was going to happen before he’d even gotten a foot in the hall.

Breathing in and out, Eggsy did it again, hitting on a rhythm that helped some, but as one song eased back to let the piano fill the room with a lullaby of lovely, aching chords, he knew he wasn’t fooling no one. Decision made, he searched the floor for Roxy, prepared to tell her it was time for him to give it up, to go home. His mum was always so tired, he liked to make sure the baby was tucked in tight, the way she liked, and that she hadn’t lost her ratty stuffed bear to the floor. The sound of her whimpering about killed him when that happened, and--

Eggsy’s heart knocked brutally hard at his ribs, any thought he’d had about leaving gone, chased straight out of his head by a pair of warm brown eyes staring back at him from across the room.

It was a near thing, but Eggsy remembered before he took a step forward that it wasn’t his place.

All he could do was wait and maybe pray, not like it had ever worked for him, not once, before he’d finally said to hell with it and quit. After they’d lost his dad, after Dean and his fucking fists, after all Eggsy’s nightmares, too much like his sniper trench, dark as dried blood and closing in, cutting off his air till he woke up choking on the words clawing up his throat, after he’d tried and tried to put himself back together so some job, any job, would have him--after all that, he was pretty damn certain there wasn’t no one listening. 

If anything could get him to try again Eggsy didn’t doubt it’d be this man, with those unflinching, miss-nothing eyes that had focused on Eggsy almost like he was something rare, like he was something of worth. The man’s regard hit him harder than any punch ever had, knocking the breath from his lungs, the exhale tripping off his lips as his pulse got to pounding harder and louder than the bass drum.

God but Eggsy needed him closer, had to know if the lines on that sharp tailor-made suit were white or a lighter gray, if the wool stretched effortlessly across his broad shoulders was soft or if it’d scratch at Eggsy’s palms. Insatiable for every last detail, he wondered how deep the dent dug into the older man’s chin, if his scent favored a storm or a fire. Not that it came close to mattering: Eggsy knew he’d let himself be consumed by either one.

The longest electrified minute of his life passed, and then, finally, his excruciatingly gorgeous man moved, long strides aimed in Eggsy’s direction.

He only just bit back a desperate shout, curling his fingers into loose fists until the urge to shove aside the earnestly smiling newcomer who’d stepped between them passed. Blinking down at the ticket he was being offered, the implication didn’t quite register until he heard, “So what d’you say, dance with me?”

Instead of asking Smiley where he’d been earlier, when Eggsy would’ve felt nothing but relief over his sudden appearance, Eggsy forced a grin. It was a fine fucking thought, that Mr Bespoke had been heading for him with a strip of tickets that’d see them through every dance for the rest of the night. Didn’t mean it was true. That he was in no position to be turning down money was fact, even if the reason to do exactly that looked like he’d stepped right out of Eggsy’s most vivid wet dream.

Swiftly, before he could change his mind, Eggsy pocketed the ticket. “Floor’s this way, innit?”

The band turned over a new song, a quick number with a bouncing beat. Nothing Eggsy couldn’t handle with a basic rock step and a few fleet-footed underarm turns. He wasn’t about to make a fool of himself first time out, and maybe he could’ve used that to explain away the feeling sitting lightly in his chest, except he knew that wasn’t it, that him being glad had everything to do with the hand holding his and how it was the only touch the dance required.

If the melody had called for an arm wrapped round his back, holding him close, Eggsy wasn’t nearly sure he could’ve gone through with it, not with his man there, standing just beyond his reach and intently watching, taking in everything about Eggsy being pressed against somebody else’s chest.

“Got a name?” Smiley asked, breathless with movement.

“It’s—“ Eggsy snuck a look at the sidelines, drenched in shadow, and still picked him out. A shard of light flashed off the signet ring Bespoke wore, and then it was out of sight, his clenched hand slipping beneath his jacket, into his trouser pocket. “Gary.”

“Mine’s Heathcliff, bu—“

Eggsy’s head came around as he blurted out, “What, like in _Wutherin’ Heights_?”

“Mum’s fond,” Heath explained, a sheepish curve cupping his mouth. It was slightly endearing, Eggsy’d give him that. “Me, I can’t bring myself to read it.”

“For the best, that,” Eggsy said, and his smile not only held, it was genuine. “Your namesake’s a right prick.”

“Exactly what dad said, you know.” Heath shuffled his feet, a quick three step that brought him closer, the faint dusting of freckles on his nose there for Eggsy to see, to count if he was of a mind to. “Mum wouldn’t hear of it,” he said, his breath warm, glancing off Eggsy’s cheek, “so here I am.”

“I got no problem with you bein’ ‘ere,” Eggsy told him, all too aware of the lie, even if it fell on the white side, “but maybe I won’t go introducin’ you to my dog anytime soon.”

“Do me a favor, yeah,” Heath swung Eggsy out and back on the beat, “and don’t explain that.”

Eggsy knew why he did it, turned his head to shield the grin he couldn’t help, only he hadn’t counted on Bespoke being near enough to see its shape. One minute Eggsy’s dream made flesh and blood had been holding ground on the outskirts of the floor, and then the next he was cutting an effortless swath through the crush of oblivious dancers, a look of unshakeable determination on that unmercifully handsome face.  
   
The song was winding down, reeling in the high energy that saturated the room. Eggsy reluctantly shifted his attention to Heath and, Christ, he didn’t know what to do with the open and honest interest brightening up the man’s pale green eyes. “If I could un-know it I fuckin’ would,” he said, falling back on their conversation, just quieter than before, “so don’t worry ‘bout me goin’ no further.”  
   
Heath’s stare narrowed at the change in tone, but he pressed on. “About the next dance—“

“Yes, about that,” Bespoke interrupted smoothly, “I was hoping the young man would do me the honor.” He held out his hand, palm up, like he was offering Eggsy the world instead of a crisp ticket. “Will you?”

He didn’t trust his voice, so Eggsy said nothing as he reached out. Drawing his fingertips across Bespoke’s palm, the rasp of skin on skin was like a paper match struck against the bit of flint on its box. By some miracle the ticket didn’t ignite, it wasn’t ash in his hand. Eggsy held the thing tight.

“Maybe another time,” Heath murmured, and Eggsy, nodding, let him slip away.

The music softened, slowed as Bespoke lifted Eggsy's hand, entwining their fingers. "Is this all right?"

“Fuck yes.” A whisper at best, there was no denying the heat scarcely contained between the syllables. Then, with the smooth woven wool of Bespoke's jacket beneath his fingertips, it caught up to him, what he’d said. "Sorry," Eggsy sputtered, "for swearin', I shouldn't've--"

"An apology is entirely unnecessary." An amused thread ran through Bespoke’s voice, indulgent as a lazy morning, warm as tangled up bedsheets. The hand resting low on Eggsy’s back splayed wider, leading him with practiced ease through a series of turns. "Unlike your name. What is it?”

Eggsy glanced up. There was no making sense of it, so he didn’t try to pin down how it was he could feel centered--like he’d been off balance his entire lifetime till then--and content in a way he couldn’t ever remember being before, all while his nerve endings had everything in common with a bunch of riotously burning sparklers. “Eggsy, or Gary, really, but s’not what I go by.” Not one to let the impossible stop him, Eggsy tucked himself tighter into the arms holding him close. “Yours?”

“Harry.” A simple name for a man who, if Eggsy had to take a guess, was anything but that. “I’d like to thank you, Eggsy, for this dance. I...”

“What?” Eggsy prompted, squeezing Harry’s hand.

If Harry’s sigh meant anything, Eggsy decided it was that whatever he was going to say, it wasn’t what he wanted to. Or what he’d been about to, before. “I believe I owe a friend of mine a bottle of Macallan.”

Eggsy frowned. “Yeah? How’s that?”

“I wouldn’t be here if not for his...insistence.”

“I got one of those,” Eggsy said, grinning. The urge to erase the line of confusion drawn between Harry’s brows with a kiss was like an itch he had to resist. “A mate who knows what’s best, usually ages before I even got a clue. She’s why I’m ‘ere.”

“Well, then,” Harry said, his lips curving up, “perhaps I owe _her_ something as well.”

“Rox? She’d be good with seein’ me happy like this and-- _Shit_.” Eggsy cringed, bit his tongue for all the good it did, with the words already out, stirring up the air between them. He opened one eye. “We can maybe forget I said that?”

“You can, if you like.” Harry swept a soothing hand up Eggsy’s back. “I’d rather not.”

“Fuck, Harry, that’s not helping.”

Harry’s laugh might’ve been quiet but it was rich and heady and Eggsy wanted to hear it again when it was just the two of them, over breakfast would suit him well, or when they fell into bed again after. The sound, the narcotic echo of it, lingered as Harry asked, “And what is it I’m supposed to be helping with?”

“I already want another dance,” Eggsy offered, settling on a lesser confession. That simple truth had the arm at his back tensing, had him rushing to add, “That’s, I mean, if you--”

“I do, Eggsy. More than I should,” Harry admitted, and if that was regret softening his tone, Eggsy sure as hell didn’t want to hear it. “But that was my only ticket.”

“You’re only--You got just one? Or--” The idea of Harry with another man wasn’t so different from being on the wrong side of a Sauer, but Eggsy had to ask, even if the answer bit like a bullet and lodged beneath his skin. He wasn’t a stranger to digging a bullet out, to staying fucking quiet while he did. “You used ‘em all already?”

Harry seamlessly removed them from another couple’s path, carving out a place of their own on the crowded floor. “The admission fee does not grant you access to the hall, not without also buying at least one ticket. When I arrived this evening,” Harry murmured--and he knew he had an active imagination, but Eggsy was sure it wasn’t that conjuring up the scant brush of lips against his temple--“it wasn’t with the expectation of finding you.”

“But if you’d known--”

“If I had known, your dance card would have one name on it.”

With the song too soon trailing to an end, Eggsy shrugged. “Easy enough to fix. Forget the tick--”

“Could you use the money, Eggsy?”

Eggsy hesitated, picturing their small place, everything in it threadbare and rundown and he wasn’t ashamed of none of it, just wanted his mum and the baby to have something better. “Yeah.”

“Then as much as I would like to take you up on that offer--”

“You’re not gonna.”

“No.” The song’s final, poignant note drifted off. Rather than let his arms fall away, Harry tightened his hold. “Eggsy.” The way he said it, like it might be the last time his tongue tasted the word, made Eggsy’s heart stutter and hold still in his chest. “Is there any chance--Will I find you here again?”

Eggsy crushed Harry’s lapel, the ticket trapped between. “Tell me when an’ I’ll be standin’ right over there.” 

Pleasure spread out in fine lines around Harry’s darkened eyes. “Tomorrow.”

“Buy more than one this time,” Eggsy said, holding that incinerating stare.

A solemn nod and then Harry tucked a bent finger beneath Eggsy’s chin. He kept the pressure light, unreasonably gentle, as he thumbed the curve of Eggsy’s smile. The brief touch sent a tremor skittering through every muscle already straining for more. “I’d buy them all if you were willing.”

Sweeter than he had in mind, the kiss Eggsy pressed to Harry’s thumb felt like a natural thing to do, like he’d already done something similar a dozen times before. He was almost tempted to put it down to a past life, the instinct was so strong.

Turned out Harry wore a wolfish grin even better than he did a suit. “I’ll take that to mean you aren’t opposed to the idea.”

“Tomorrow,” Eggsy said, “I’ll show you how willin’ I am.”

Harry’s grin sharpened to a dangerous edge. “Promises, promises.”

“I keep mine.”

“As do I.” Harry’s glance shifted to the side. “Your other admirer has several tickets left. Take them, Eggsy.” With that he eased out of Eggsy’s grip. If he had a problem with the anomaly of creases in his jacket it didn’t show on his face. “Until tomorrow, then,” Harry said and stepped away, quickly crossing the dance floor.

“Fuckin’ hell, Harry,” Eggsy said under his breath, watching his man walk away, “look back.”

Heath stood at his elbow and held out the tickets Harry mentioned, asking his question softly. Eggsy kept his eyes fixed on the hall’s only exit.

On the threshold Harry paused. And turned his head.


	2. Friday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will do my absolute best to not allow a year to pass without an update, I really will. Also, the comments on the first chapter still make me so, so happy. Thank you for them. As ever, comments and kudos are HUGELY appreciated.

Innumerable wraiths were tethered to every corner of every room Harry entered, precisely where he’d put them. No different from any other dangerous and viable threat, they were best kept in sight. But lines had to be drawn, and he’d be damned if he’d feed the insatiable, sharp-toothed things even one moment of rare quiet.

Loath as he was to admit to the comfort he took from familiar tasks, it was only when his hands performed them that his mind could wander freely, without incident. The repetitive strokes of polish-coated bristles over the toe of an Oxford. The rote disassembly of a Webley for mechanism inspection and cleaning. The daily stripping of stray cat hairs from the suede shoulder patches on Merlin’s sweater, or lifting loose threads from the Mackintosh field jacket the man would wear in perpetuity. All necessarily second nature to him.

Which is perhaps why, after he had left the dance hall and returned to the shop, the strong hand of habit had sent him after the spare kit hidden behind bolts of off season wool. He had removed the cap from a bottle of Esquire, refolded a white cloth, pristine in color and crisp in line, and laid it to the side. Finally, he had set a densely bristled brush on the counter beside the rest. The ensuing motions nudged at the back of his mind and were, within surprisingly few seconds, forgotten, utterly consumed by the intimate echo of a charming melody and thoughts of a beautiful young man.

It might have been the oddest leash his subconscious had ever constructed, each link composed of soft piano notes looped around the lingering phantom flicker of candle-warm breath against his throat. His wraiths didn’t stir, didn’t strain towards him as the hour darkened and he fell into a light sleep on the sofa by the fading fire.

The world he inhabited was soot stained and blood soaked, and he’d been mistaken in thinking that there was nothing in the whole of it that he desired more than a night of transparent peace and unburdened sleep. Prior to last evening, he simply hadn’t known Eggsy existed in that world.

“You’ve one too many folds there if that’s meant to be a Windsor.”  

Harry paused with a slip of cool silk between his fingers. His soft focus sharpened to find Merlin’s reflection beside his in the mirror. “What?”

“Your tie, Harry.” Merlin’s brow rose above his glasses’ frame. “Or has the noose come back in fashion?”

“Careful.” The tie slid against Harry’s palm, quick and smooth as his smirk. “You’re showing your age.”

Merlin snorted. “One turn around the dance floor and you seem to think you’ve shed a few of your own years.” The brim of the hat Merlin lifted absorbed a moment’s worth of attention, but then he quietly said, “I’m glad.”

“Sentiment?” Harry turned from the mirror’s reflection of Merlin to the man himself. Incalculable fondness cut through the imposed gravity in his tone when he asked, "Whatever is happening to us?"

“Infatuation happened to you,” Merlin supplied. “Fuck knows what my excuse might be.”

Adjusting a precisely folded cloth square until a diamond-tip rose an inch above his pocket, Harry considered his response. “Infatuation is--It’s hardly the word.”

“Oh?” The hat returned to its perch, Merlin leaned back against the counter. Crossed his arms. “And the correct term?”

“I’ve wondered the same these past few hours.” Honed in on a compact cluster of lint clinging to the front panel of Merlin’s herringbone cardigan, Harry separated it from the knit and, depositing it in the bin, lifted his shoulders. “I’m inclined to believe it doesn’t exist in any of the languages either of us knows.”

“A romantic notion from the mouth of a practical man.” Merlin’s mouth turned up. “I simply must meet this boy.”

Harry slanted a strict look at his closest friend. “When you do, you will be on your best behavior.”

“Well, we’ll certainly see.”

Harry let it go, the lateness of the hour winding around his lungs. The last time he’d experienced a similar eagerness he’d been a skinned-knee boy, with sun-brightened curls in remarkable disarray. Decades had passed, endless years of training: he had thought he’d subdued his heart’s tendency to riot. The depth of a dimple, the notch in an eyebrow, was all it had taken to prove him wrong.

“You’ll be wearing that, then?”

Merlin glanced down at his clothes, cataloging the half-zipped, thickly knit cardigan with coal-black sleeves, the wide-ribbed pullover in the same Stygian shade worn beneath it. A passing nod to color at his throat, the navy and green tartan tie a perennial favorite. The pristine white of his collar was a bright shock nestled in the dark. Merlin’s brow furrowed before he met Harry’s eyes. “And what, exactly, is wrong with this?”

“One day, Merlin, you’ll do us both a favor and admit to being half-blind.”

“I’ll grant you a mite _color_ -blind, but that’s all.”

“Progress.” Harry checked the clock again and made for the shop’s door. “And it’s only taken, what? A mere thirty-odd years?”

Folding into the taxi, Merlin’s bent knee rapped Harry’s in the restrictive confines of the backseat. “Says the man who will to his dying day refuse to admit to being an insufferable—“ Their driver coughed, a question rounding his eyes. Merlin glared back. “He’s fooled you too, has he--”

“Avalon Dancing Academy,” Harry said, and settled into the seat. 

His hand paced a line from knee to thigh and back again.

“Harry.”

“Hmm?”

“Going on what you’ve told me, inexplicable as it may be,” Merlin said, “the boy was interested.”

Unbidden, he recalled the soul-shaking press of smooth, slightly slick lips against his thumb; the breath that licked flame-like at his skin. And Eggsy’s eyes: fathomless, hungry as an ocean’s undertow. Harry thought of his own willingness to succumb, to drown, and cleared his throat. “I believe he was, yes.”

Satisfied, Merlin nodded. He gestured to Harry’s restless hand, stalking along his trousers’ pinstripe towards the cliff of his knee. “Then this frankly terrifying demonstration of nerves is for no reason. Relax, Harry. He’ll be in your arms soon enough.” A chuckle, and then, “All night, unless you’ve decided one ticket will again suffice?” 

“I suspect Eggsy will never let me live that down, either,” Harry admitted. “No matter that I couldn’t have known.”

“What’s this?” Merlin cast his elbow out until it collided, gently, with Harry’s ribs. “The great Harry Hart isn’t presentient after all? Is not, in actuality, all-knowing? Isn’t--”

“That’s quite enough of that,” Harry sneered, but to little effect, as unexpected laughter crowded against the words. “Crowing doesn’t suit you, never has.”

“Oh, but it does, darling,” Merlin corrected, with another hell-bound grin. “Even moreso than this sharp ensemble I selected for our evening’s outing.”

“‘Ere we are, then.” Hastily spoken, the pronouncement seemed to bounce between the wing mirrors. Turned with an elbow propped on the seat back to collect his fare, speculation shifted in the driver’s stare. He scratched his neck, beneath his ear, as though curiosity could be scraped away by cracked nails, and sighed when it apparently held on. “Ya mentioned another bloke, heard tha’ clear as day, but are you two sure yer not--”

“More than certain,” Harry answered. 

“If only because I’m out of his league,” Merlin added, and grunted when Harry’s heel came down hard on his foot. “Hey, now. Mind the shoes.”

“Pay the man, Merlin.” 

Harry stepped out of the cab and over to the end of the queue. Rather than press back his cuff, exposing his watch’s full moon face to the sky’s muted light, he slipped both hands into his pockets. It would be easy enough to pull the pin and spin the slim hands, to watch as they wound, second by second, closer to the hall’s opening hour. He knew better than most that time wouldn’t be rushed, not that way.

Merlin stepped up beside him, took in the strand of mismatched patrons. “Perhaps we’re in the wrong business, if the hall sees a crowd this size every night.”

Intent on a familiar slick of red hair tidily tucked beneath the charcoal tweed of a flat cap, the wearer waiting not a foot from the hall’s shuttered entrance, Harry muttered, “By all means, don’t let me stop you from changing professions.”

“I’m well familiar with that glare, Harry. Remember, I’m here to dance, and you to see your Eggsy.”

Harry let his shoulders fall back to relaxed. “I have no intention of inciting violence.”

“No, it’s only that violence has a tendency to follow you ‘round, like some lovesick pup with teeth too big and sharp for its mouth and a keen willingness to do exactly as you ask.”

“I suppose I need not remind you that my control--”

“Is absolute. Oh, I know, and thank god for that minor miracle.” A predatory curve sliced Merlin’s cheek as the doors were pulled open, as the line shifted into a lattice row of heads, every man and woman there trying for a glimpse into the hall’s interior. “Here we go, then.”

An interminably slow shuffle later, Harry moved beyond the threshold, Merlin at his heels as they made their way up the stairs to the ticket booth. The currency he slid through the slot had the cashier’s eyes widening, thick brow stealing up towards a receding hairline. It was, perhaps, an excessive number of tickets. Harry could not have cared less if they marked him as a desperate man, or a besotted one.

“That a boy, Harry,” Merlin said, as he took care of his own transaction. “Now let’s go, or--”

“He’ll already have a partner,” Harry said, certain of it after spying that red hair towards the head of the line. The thought, the very idea of another man’s hands on Eggsy, tipped his heart rate dangerously off kilter. Lengthening his strides, forcing Merlin to match his speed, they overtook the well-stocked bar, the rows of club chairs lined up like dully shining train cars. “Heathcliff, the other young man I told you about, arrived before us.”

“You could always choose another--”

“ _No_.” 

Merlin whistled, the low note settling in beneath the swell of music. “It really is like that, then.”

For as long as they had been back-to-back in whichever war they’d been pointed at, Merlin had favored statements over questions, even when the latter was more appropriate, if only to provide a polite smokescreen. An opportunity for the other party to deny or refute, to sling misguided dignity around the shoulders like a cape. Merlin knew all too well: In life, as in comic books, that ridiculous bit of fabric more often than not got in the way. His friend had from day one been obliged to wrest it away from Harry whenever he saw fit. In that hall, with Eggsy, it was hardly necessary. 

Harry would wager Merlin knew that, too, removing the obligation of a response. 

He shouldered his way through the crowd clutched at the dance floor’s edge, all of them gawking at the gilt, at the flowers and such painted on the ceiling. More than a few of the patrons appeared to forget they held cocktail glasses, their fingers light on the stems, the alcohol trembling at the lip and primed to fall on shoes stretched by considerable wear. 

Merlin nudged his arm. “Well?” 

It went without saying that Merlin had precisely followed the trajectory of Harry’s gaze to the other side of the room. To the young man standing there. An immaculate attempt at civility had been made with pomade in his lion-blond hair, with the clothes that were a touch too big to do anything but slide like liquid over a body honed, no doubt, by rigorous military training. The presentation was undone by the toe of Eggsy’s Oxford over the dancers’ line, and by the angle of that diamond-cut jaw as he combed through the throng of potential partners approaching with tickets in hand. 

After a series of seconds that stretched on like a classroom hour, Eggsy’s head turned. With excruciating precision he deployed the same slanted smile that had flashed through the most decadent dreams Harry could ever recall having.

Merlin’s head shook. “You and your penchant for unpinned hand grenades,” he murmured, amused and, if Harry accurately measured his tone, impressed. “What are you waiting for? If it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer to meet your young man before the evening’s out.”

Hovering in front of the remaining dancers were six men--four in off-the-peg suits, two in badly pressed shirts tucked into trousers--and one woman, who wore a pleated, knee-skimming dress like it was satin or taffeta. Harry cut around them smoothly and stood with less than the respectable foot to spare between Eggsy and himself.

The smile deepened. Harry’s thoughts looped around that hook, onto a sequence of events that would see Eggsy shoved up against a wall, his mouth open and warm as a summer storm beneath Harry’s. 

“Harry.” His name had never sounded so much like a coil, like a binding he not only allowed, Harry acknowledged, but would tighten himself if given the word. “What took you so long?”

“A friend and the contents of his wardrobe. Eggsy,” Harry said, “this is Merlin, to whom I have yet to give that bottle of Macallan.”

Merlin extended a hand, his clasp tight and testing and before it parted with Eggsy’s, a benediction. “It’s a pleasure to meet the man attached to the name my unshakeable friend here was moaning in his sleep.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

A dimple winked in Eggsy’s cheek when he looked at Harry. “That right?” The ridiculous tape line ignored, he moved wholly into Harry’s space, but kept his hands carefully to his pockets, the very last place Harry wanted them to linger. “Next time, though,” Eggsy said, the words slotting into the song between the hush and the climax, “I’ll be the actual cause of them sounds. At least all night. Longer, if you ain’t of a mind to kick me out.” Eggsy’s gaze and his grin shifted to Merlin. “Promises to keep and all that.”

“Did I say hand grenade?” Merlin asked as an aside to Harry. “Before?”

“You did.”

“I was off. Not nearly enough boom there, not for this one.” Merlin rubbed his hands together, tipping his head towards the uncluttered side of the room. “Well, now, that mention of Macallan has given me ideas. I’ll be seeing you both much, much later on. Welcome to the fold, Eggsy.”

“What was all that about hand grenades?” Eggsy asked, after Merlin had slipped between the couples on the floor, well on his way to the bar. “Nah, you know what, nix that. There’s somethin’ else I’m thinkin’ I’d rather hear ‘bout.” There was something of the devil’s charm in Eggsy’s expression when he glanced back up, a light through the veil of his lashes that signaled a deal in the offing. Harry stilled his hand from reaching for the pen in his pocket. “Your dreams. They were sweet, were they, Harry?”

“Far from it,” Harry murmured, reacquainting his thumb with Eggsy’s lips. “They were--”

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of seeing you here before.” A self-satisfied advertisement for the reviving Cowdray Park Polo Club, the young man inexplicably at Harry’s elbow was tall, trim, with thick brown hair left to its fate. Tickets peeked out of his pocket, as crisp and deliberate as the line of his bespoke trousers and the smile that failed to light the classical angles of his face. “I’m Charlie. Charlie Hesketh.”

Eggsy’s shoulders drew back, suddenly rigid.

“You are interrupting,” Harry said, simply. 

“Yes, and I do hope you’ll forgive me, but,” Charlie said, trying on a lower, more intimate tone, “also understand that I would not welcome the regret that would follow me home should we not have shared at least one dance before the band disassembles.”

“A gentleman bears up under regret. Now, if you’ll ex--”

Charlie laid a quelling hand on Harry’s arm. “One dance,” he said. “You won’t want to pursue another partner after it, I promise.”

“You want that bone intact when you walk outta here,” Eggsy’s sniper scope stare targeted Charlie’s face before his wrist, “I’d remove the hand you’ve got on him.”

“Fighting will get you expelled from the hall,” Charlie recited, in a manner that brought to mind a dark-paneled study, taxidermy perched on the mantel and windowsills, and a pince-nez-wearing private tutor whose scholarship extended to the mathematics of dancing for money. “And not just for the night.”

If Harry wasn’t mistaken, there was more pity than aggression in the slow shake of Eggsy’s head. “You ain’t lookin’ at him right,” he told Charlie, “if you’re thinkin’ I’m the one who’ll do the breaking.”

“Eggy, is it? This conversation is for grown-ups--”

“Then I honestly got no idea why you’re still speaking.”

Charlie turned to focus on Harry, obviously aware that Eggsy had deftly wrapped the reins on the encounter around both hands. “The standards of this Hall have sunk egregiously low if--”

“Pardon the interruption.” Heath smiled at Eggsy; anyone looking closely at the one corner of his mouth could see sadness pinned there. The shade of an unrealized fantasy. For a singular moment Harry felt remorse beneath the gratitude for Heath’s sudden presence; he’d bought so many tickets to monopolize Eggsy’s every word and glance, no matter that Heath’s interest was as sincere as his own. “I was wondering,” Heath said, assured of their attention, “if you’d dance with me.”

“Heath,” Eggsy softly said, “I--”

“What do you say?” Heath asked Charlie, whose gaze flicked between the players in front of him before settling on Heath. 

“One dance is three tickets. Can you manage that?”

Eggsy snarled, “That ain’t--”

“Yes,” Heath’s chin was notched too high to take notice of the self-inflicted wound in Eggsy’s eyes, “I can.”

Charlie pocketed the proffered tickets and left Heath’s hand to the air. “Come on, then.”

Harry watched the unlikely pair move to the dance floor. He might have been able to afford the entrance fee and several tickets, but Heath’s clothes were not cut to fit his slim frame and his shirt cuffs had seen brighter days. He wore his flat cap like it was a family favorite, passed down from his father or a beloved older brother. His wrist was absent of a watch; not a glint of gold or even silver in sight. 

“That was a favor,” Harry said, “I intend to repay.” 

“That mean you’ll leave a dance with me open for him?” 

His tone teased, but that wound went unstaunched in Eggsy’s gaze where it had fastened onto Heath’s stiff arm against Charlie’s back. Whether or not his truth would be a balm, Harry didn’t hesitate to admit, “Of course not.”

Eggsy huffed out an unsteady laugh. “Selfish or greedy?”

“Where you are concerned,” Harry reached for Eggsy’s hand, the young man’s fingers unfolding to accept Harry’s as though the hold was home, “take your pick.”

“That’s all right,” Eggsy conceded, “so long as you know the street runs both ways.”

“I would certainly fucking hope so.”

“Harry.” Just that, with urgency.

When his free hand cleared his pocket, a tight roll of tickets balanced motionlessly on Harry’s open palm. There for a single taking. “Dance with me, Eggsy.”

A whistle and then, “Did you buy out the lot?”

“Promises to keep and all that,” Harry echoed, delighted by the over the shoulder smirk it won him as Eggsy led the way to the dance floor. 

Their hands in place and firmly clasped, Eggsy had settled in Harry’s arms, chest pressed to chest, when Merlin parted the couple nearest to them. Harry recognized the pinch between Merlin’s brow, visible in spite of the bridge on the man’s glasses. He held Eggsy tighter.

“Eggsy,” Merlin briefly greeted him. “Harry, I hate to do this, but we’ve something to take care of that can’t wait.”

Harry nodded shortly. “How long?” 

“Forty, but that’s a bit of a stretch,” Merlin said. “I’ll go, secure a taxi. Until next time, Eggsy.”

“This ain’t happenin’,” Eggsy said. “It’s not fuckin’ on, Harry.”

“No, it isn’t.” Bringing their joined hands to his lips, Harry brushed a kiss across Eggsy’s knuckles. “And if it wasn’t imperative, I wouldn’t consider leaving.”

“Can you tell me--”

“I’m afraid not,” Harry said. “But if you are willing to return here tomorrow night--”

“You know I fuckin’ am. I’ll go wherever you tell me, so long as you’re there too.”

Stepping back before he thought better of it and said to hell with whatever mission had gone tits up, Harry took one more long look at Eggsy, enfolded in ivory light and soft music. “If you would give at least three of those tickets to Heath, I would appreciate it.” 

Eggsy’s promise was a soft smile. “Till tomorrow, then.”


End file.
